The U.S. Pat. No. 6,961,565 describes a cell search method and apparatus for mobile station in a mobile communication system. The time required for a cell search and the accuracy of the cell search is modified by determining, during selection of frame boundaries and a scramble code, whether or not the selection results are correct. A mobile station causes descramblers to descramble a received signal with eight scramble codes. Then, a correlator calculates the phases of the scramble codes on the basis of frame boundaries, and de-spreads the signal with a spreading code for a common pilot channel. The mobile station performs this operation over a plurality of symbols, and causes averaging process sections to average the results. Then, a peak detector selects a scramble code with which an average correlation coefficient is largest. This maximum average correlation coefficient is output to a detection results judging section, which then calculates the ratio of this value to a reference value calculated inside the mobile station, thereby judging detection results.
However, the known system is less suitable for detecting multiple base stations.